


Like a winter

by sparrowshift



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Chronicles of Narnia Fusion, Aslan character assassination, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fairytale elements, Fingers in Mouth, Food Play, Loss of Virginity, Manipulation, Possessive Kylo Ren, Rey eats a lot of food, Rey is into all of it, Rey's employers are shitty, Somnophilia, Under-negotiated Kink, Weight Gain, White Witch!Kylo, alcohol use, an excess of fur-wearing, brief mentions of biting and kicking children, drugged food, erotic eating, nanny!Rey, sexist lion, this is a weird one let me know if I need to add any triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:48:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28516680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowshift/pseuds/sparrowshift
Summary: When nanny Rey hides in a wardrobe (mostly, if she's being honest, to get ten minutes away from those horrible children), she is whisked into a world of eternal winter ruled by the wicked King Kylo Ren.Kylo Ren takes a particular interest in the strange human, so warm and pink. Some insistent faun tells Rey she should be worried, she should return to her homeworld at once. But with all the pastries and hot chocolate and an ice castle to live in, Rey finds it hard to care...In short:The Lion, the Witch, and the WardrobeReylo AU where Kylo is the White Witch.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 112
Kudos: 550





	Like a winter

**Author's Note:**

> Last warning to mind the tags! Please let me know if you see any I need to add.

This new world looks as though it can hold no more snow.

Every spare corner is stuffed with snow. Snow blankets every inch of ground. Snow coats every pine needle of every fir tree, which grow out of the ground like massive inverted icicles. The sun is a giant snowball casting cold light. Even the sky is a pure, dense white.

But though no new drifts could possibly find room, snowflakes still begin to fall.

Rey’s knees knock under the beige skirt of her uniform.

Why had she decided that to be “world’s best nanny,” she also had to be good at hide-and-seek?

Rey has _pedigree_. She clawed herself up from nothing to train at Britain’s finest child care institution. She read every book, excelled at every practical. She knows not to take a child’s bait.

Still, one snotty-nosed Margaret claimed Rey was _no fun_ and _slow_ and _chose the stupidest hiding spots_ , and Rey had taken it as a personal challenge.

Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to be the world’s best nanny. Maybe she secretly just craved ten minutes away from Joseph, who is going through a “little biting phase,” who pulls her hair and kicks her then laughs while his parents throw Rey withering looks from the hallway as they swish by — _shouldn’t you have him in hand by now_? Rey bears Joseph battle-scars: bite marks peppering her arms, bruises splotching her legs. She winces as her shivering legs bump together.

At least the wardrobe was a good hiding spot.

Given the wardrobe is apparently an inter-dimensional portal.

Anyhow. No point in regrets now. She looks again at the whitest figure on the snowy landscape. A man in the white furs, who sits in a sledge pulled (inexplicably) by reindeer.

The very large man. The man with black eyes, with a face so cold it could be made of sculpted ice.

The man holding out his gloved hand to her.

“You seem cold, Rey,” he says, voice soft and deep like a snowdrift. “Please, let me help you get warm.”

She swallows, trying not to let him see how she shivers.

“You need a hot drink,” he states, hand unwavering. “I can make you whatever you desire.”

Well, Rey already told the strange man in a strange world her name. And standing here freezing isn’t doing her much good. And that hot drink _does_ sound nice.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

She takes his hand.

* * *

Everything about her is pink.

Pink nose, pink flush on her cheeks.

Little pink tongue wetting her lips as she sits next to him in the sledge.

She shakes like a small, scared animal, but he doesn’t think she’s frightened.

Only cold.

He knows what it’s like to feel cold down to his bones. But the feeling is so ordinary to him that he forgets it, like the act of breathing in and out. He doesn’t know what it’s like _not_ to know cold.

But she — the _girl_ — _Rey_ — _feels_ the snow, which is why her knees are red and shivering. She’s not dressed for the weather. She must come from somewhere _hot_ and _warm_. Kylo has read of such human places.

He thinks she must absorb the sun there, down into her veins. Because even though she shivers, when she touched his gloved hand he could feel heat radiating into his palm. And when she let go, when the heat left, the absence made him remember the cold. He felt its icy claw around his lungs again, for a brief moment.

That makes him hate her. Even more than he hates any human.

She is very small next to him in the sledge. Small and pink and easy to break.

He is careful not to brush against the heat of her again as he arranges the bearskin blanket over her knees.

* * *

The fur is... nice. Luxurious. She isn’t yet warm, but already sensation has begun to return to her numb legs and arms.

Her hand burrows deep into the fur. Once, she explored a different wardrobe, the children’s mother’s wardrobe. Her employers were out and the children were asleep. The open door had revealed rows of fox and mink stoles with staring glass eyes. Rey tries not to think about which animal _this_ came from. But perhaps they don’t have other choices for warmth, in this world.

Her nose is running now. She wipes it on her shoulder.

“What would you like to drink, Rey?” The man hasn't moved his eyes from her, not once. Like a snowy owl stalking a field mouse.

Suddenly, in her mind, Rey goes back to university, where the other girls convinced her to go out dancing. Men would buy her drinks and she would keep the glass close to her chest the entire night. Watching, just in case.

But curiosity burns inside her. _I can make you whatever you desire._ May as well test him.

“Frothed hot chocolate, please. With a peppermint stirrer.”

He takes out a copper bottle. The object looks comically small in his large hands as he plucks off the stopper.

(Rey might have gone home with a man with hands like that.)

He tilts the bottle until a single gleaming drop hits the snow beside the sledge. And with a puff of steam, a jewelled goblet appears against the white. He scoops it up and hands it to her.

The goblet is quite heavy: she lets it rest in her lap. The red and emerald jewels are the size of coat buttons and remarkably clear. Not that she knows how to assess their authenticity. The drink looks as she expected, dark and rich, the peppermint stirrer a burst of red against the snowy backdrop.

The man mistakes her long evaluation for dissatisfaction.

"Do you like whipped cream?"

Rey nods. With another drop from the copper bottle, the surface of the chocolate erupts with the most pillowy, most luscious cream Rey has ever beheld.

“It’s safe,” he says. “Here.” And, eyes never leaving her face, he takes a smooth sip from the goblet, wiping his full lips on the back of his hand.

Her thighs shift under the fur. Rey definitely shouldn’t take a drink from this strange man, in this strange wood, in a world governed by rules she doesn’t understand.

It would be the height of foolishness to do so.

She lifts the chocolate to her lips.

* * *

Pink begins to spread evenly across her face, down her neck, as she warms up.

The _need_ to see how far the flush goes nearly overwhelms Kylo. He tightens his gloved hand into a fist. He can’t get distracted.

He should focus instead on her foolishness. Her greed as she throws the goblet back and drinks every drop. Of _course_ , he wouldn’t be affected by his own magic: she trusted him too easily. Soon the drink will give her pliant lips and a pliant tongue. She will tell him anything, let him _do_ anything to her, for another taste.

When her face emerges from behind the goblet, her eyes are hot and bright. Foam clings to her rosy upper lip.

“Where did you come from, Rey?” he asks, using the same soft voice he usually reserves for the reindeer.

He expects the words to tumble out of her mouth in a blizzard, but she does not reply. Again, the pink tongue, this time running over her top lip, feeling for any spare trace of cream.

“Do you have… family? Friends? Other humans?” His tone becomes more insistent.

She turns her face towards him with those same bright eyes. Her tongue curls over the end of the peppermint stick. But her voice is sealed up tight like a stone.

“I should be going back,” is all she says in the end. “They’re very strict about taking breaks.”

 _No._ She can’t leave. Not while he still has unanswered questions. She could pose a threat — she may have already spoken to the lion. She could have brothers and sisters to sit on the throne in his stead.

She can’t leave. Not while he still doesn’t know how far the pink goes.

* * *

Rey knows he has done _something_ to the chocolate. Her limbs are floating, her face hot, verging on fevered. She feels like she trusts him, and Rey never trusts anyone, let alone strangers. So she focuses all of her energy on saying nothing unnecessary.

Still, when he tells her about his castle, the pastries and hot stews and meats, the excess of frothed hot chocolate and whipped cream and peppermint sticks, she listens.

The goblet is still heavy in her lap.

If she came in with her clothes and limbs intact, surely she can take objects out.

Rey imagines selling the goblet and others like it. She imagines leaving her job, buying a house in the countryside where she can garden and wear silk robes and lounge on down pillows. Rey, the village eccentric, with a “No Solicitors!!!!” sign on her gate. And she would never, ever take orders from a child again.

Besides, the hot chocolate tastes divine here. The floating feeling is a nice addition. Rey may as well drink her fill.

“Take me there,” she says, placing a hand on his knee. The motion isn’t particularly artful; her nails are bitten to the quick.

But he does as she says. In that way, he’s just like every other man.

* * *

The human — he’s settled on that address in his mind, just to maintain the proper distance — is hungry.

She eats vast quantities of trifle: ladyfingers and raspberries and cream.

She eats several Yorkshire puddings.

She eats mackerel in gooseberry sauce.

But the human still doesn’t speak to him, no matter how much he cajoles, no matter how flushed she becomes from the drinking and eating.

They both sit on the ornate carpeted floor of one of the castle’s finest rooms: he’s never found much use for furnishings. He should be disgusted at the way she gets sauce on her chin. He _is_ disgusted. He hates the way her fingers stain red from the raspberries. He hates the way she hums when something especially delicious touches her tongue.

The distance between them begins to close.

He wants to feed her a vol-au-vent from his hand like a pet.

* * *

Rey has never been so full and sated.

For years, she had to accept whatever morsels she was given. And when she left the group homes for parentless children, the war was on, there were rations: every gristle scrimped and saved and treasured. Even now, when her employers cover her meals, she is supposed to be discreet, not too greedy. Rey must never help herself to seconds or the finer household treats.

But here, she need only ask, and the copper bottle produces dish after dish beyond her wildest fancies. And there is no need for niceties, not with this wild man of snow and ice and his castle without tables, so she scoops what tastes best directly into her mouth.

Out of the corner of her eye, he creeps closer to her.

She tries not to speak, but his voice is so soothing. Like the hot chocolate. Like being warm inside while the wind howls around the castle: his voice both the wind and the fire.

Her eyelids begin to droop.

He takes her up a winding staircase and shows her to her bed. Like she is an honoured guest or a small child that needs to be tucked in. The bed has a straw mattress, but with all the fur and padding it’s surprisingly soft. She slides the golden goblet and a golden dish under her pillow, and he doesn’t seem to mind.

* * *

He doesn’t trust anyone with her — the human. Especially not the dwarfs, who are the barely-competent best of a not-competent lot.

He paces outside her chamber. The tower is high, she can hardly step out the window. But he can’t be certain what strange powers humans possess, particularly if that lion has set his golden eyes on her. Better keep two eyes on her himself, he decides, and slides open the door to the room.

She is a little paler in sleep, but still pink. Her torso pokes out from beneath the furs. She has unbuttoned the top button of the strange, shapeless gown she wears, so he sees just a hint of skin beneath her collarbone. A lighter pink. Delicate, and salted with freckles, the colour calling to him in a way he can’t name.

Before he knows what he is doing, he has removed a glove.

He shouldn’t touch her. She will only burn him. The warmth will only hurt him, later, when it is gone. But a stray lock of hair has stuck to her cheek and is tickling her nose. He should move it. Make her comfortable.

(It is only later that it occurs to him that he should not be so concerned for his prisoner’s comfort.)

But he forgets to replace the glove before he does so, his knuckles brush against her cheek…

And she’s so _warm_ that he gasps, even though he has barely touched her. This is like no heat he has ever felt, a heat no bonfire could ever replicate. His hand rests on her face. He’s shaking, afraid she will wake and see how even this small touch makes a wreck of him.

But her eyes stay closed, her breathing even. And soon even the warmth of her cheek isn’t enough.

He is an animal in a snowstorm desperate for shelter. Her hot breath plays across his fingers. He brushes his thumb over her lips, the pinkest, warmest part of her face — those plush lips part slightly for him, even in sleep —

His bare thumb slides into her wet, hot mouth.

He brushes past her teeth. Runs the pad over her rough tongue, the smooth inside of her cheek.

His breath is coming fast now — his heart pounds in his chest — heat spreads from her to him — his blood is alive, throbbing —

So many years, cold and alone.

He is beyond all reason, his eyes half-closed —

_More, more._

He adds the tip of his index finger to the heat. Forms a ring with his thumb, just past her lips. His palm rests on her chin, tilting her face up. Her eyelids flutter at the intrusion but do not open.

In her sleep, she _sucks._ Like his fingers are precious peppermint sticks.

He hears a _groan_ coming from his own throat _._

He whips his hand out of her mouth as though burned. Rushes out of the room. Leans against her closed door, trying to stop himself from panting, letting the chill settle back against his heart.

But his fingers are still warm and wet with her.

* * *

Rey is still half-asleep when she feels his approach. She is so warm and satisfied that when he touches her face with those fingers of ice, she is sure it must be a dream. And because it is a dream, she finds the touch comforting, she opens her mouth in a silent, satisfied sigh —

And then his thumb in her mouth, those large fingers she has been thinking of all evening, and her mind goes blank. She can only think of the taste of his skin, almost the _absence_ of taste like crisp new snow, with the slightest trace of salt. And then he adds a second, her lips stretch, she is on the verge of gagging, and Rey has suddenly never been wetter or needier in her life, every nerve of her crying to be touched.

She’s nothing but a doll to him, a little wet and hot hole. Dolls stay quiet; she keeps her eyes closed as though asleep…

But she is too far gone to play her role completely. She practically _drools_ as she sucks his fingers into her mouth...

And then his fingers leave, leaving her mouth cruelly empty, her tongue curling around nothing.

In the dark, one hand finds her nipples; the other, her cunt. She flips over and grinds against the mattress, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out, imagining those fingers in her mouth again, imagining how he could fuck every hole she has as she stays quiet and obedient —

she sobs, she moves the hand on her breast to her mouth, stuffing as many of her own small fingers as will fit past her lips —

They’re not enough. Her thumb is too thin, taste too much like her and her world. But she still gets there with her mouth half-full.

As her orgasm crashes through her, she only has one clear thought: _this world is dangerous._

She should go back to the dull, grey place that makes sense.

* * *

That night, Kylo dreams not of white, not of endless frost and snow flurries, but of green.

He is very small. The trees, alien in their greenness, appear as large as the spires of the castle.

He isn’t cold at all. Leaves are strewn on the ground; he crunches through them. Someone holds his hand. Someone lowers a magnificent branch to his height, so he can pluck off the bright green fruit. An apple, warmed by the sun.

_Look at that, Ben._

He wakes to loud loneliness, like the howl of a storm. It’s been so long since he dreamed: waking feels like a sort of death.

He should turn the human to stone. He should extinguish the soft pink of her.

* * *

Rey fully intends on leaving. The man in the castle could not watch her forever, he has other duties to attend to. Rey has already snuck out, past the dwarfs who have fallen asleep, clearly unused to watching prisoners with any regularity. She walks through the flurries of snow. The wood is featureless, but she can make out a dim light in the distance: the lamppost marks the point where she arrived with a strange, eternal flame.

But then there’s some faun (half-goat, half-man, from the looks of it) in a red scarf, beckoning forward, insisting she come to tea with a frankly terrifying zeal. And she supposes she could use one more adventure before returning to a life of childcare drudgery.

The faun’s name is Mr Dameron. No first name, as far as she can tell.

Rey only half-listens to him chatter as he prepares the tea in his cottage, her head brushing the ceiling. She nurses a slightly stale crumpet. Her thoughts drift towards the man of ice, the way his dark eyes watched her eat, the way he folded the furs around her in the sledge...

But she should have been listening, because suddenly Mr Dameron has burst into tears, claiming he planned on “betraying her to King Kylo Ren” and he is “truly, the worst faun who ever lived” and “his father would be so ashamed.”

“Who is King Kylo Ren?” asks Rey, though she already has an inkling.

“Why, he is our ruler, of course — or so he _claims_ to be; he has us all under threat of being turned to stone. It’s he that makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas!” the faun cries in despair, his horns practically trembling, one hoof stamping at the cottage floor.

Rey never understood the fuss about Christmas. Not when she had always been alone as a child. Now she finds the songs on the radio were annoying and sometimes a little creepy: take “Carol of the Bells,” which haunts her nightmares. Seeing lights on the houses only reminds her of her lonely and light-less childhood, which only makes her sad. And now, her charges became their most terrifying on Christmas Day, shrieking and crying, fueled by sugar and blind rage for presents.

She could do quite well in a world without Christmas.

And apparently, the man in the castle is a King, which must mean something.

And Mr Dameron’s tea tastes ever-so-slightly of hamsters.

So when Mr Dameron moans and shakes his head — “if I let you leave, Ren will saw off my horns and clip my hooves, or worse, turn me into stone! But you mustn't stay here: it’s too dangerous” —Rey comes to a decision quickly.

“I’ll take myself back, Mr Dameron, and he’ll be none the wiser. Please stop sobbing.”

And she takes one last sip of the tea, just for politeness' sake, before venturing back out toward the castle, into the swirling snow.

Somehow, despite the faun’s warnings, despite the grimacing statues contorted in the courtyard, Rey is never afraid.

* * *

He should turn her to stone for leaving. Kylo had called on the trees to find her, had driven the sledge to the spot where the lamppost shines day and night, expecting to cut off her escape. He had only returned when the wind spoke of her changing direction, walking through the wood with the furs around her shoulders. (No proper shoes, no hat for her head: the thought makes him furious.)

But she came back on her own accord. No doubt his food and drink wormed into her mind, and she can no longer imagine going without. The thought makes him feel possessive, almost pleased. He will allow her one more night.

Now she is asleep again, her hair damp from the snow outside. He brushes his hand across the arches of her warm feet, first absent-mindedly, then with intention. Her toes feel different than the rough bottoms of her feet, which feel in turn different from her smooth ankle, her calves soft with fine light hairs. The heat increases the further up her leg he touches, he marvels, running his palm over her thighs...

She is dreaming. Maybe not a good dream. Her legs squirm, she moans. So he draws his hand back cautiously. He leaves the room on silent feet.

But not before sampling the wet heat of her mouth again. Three fingers, this time. Just to tide him through the freezing night.

He will turn her to stone in the morning, of course.

* * *

Rey drinks fragrant tea from a delicate porcelain cup. He sits across from her, cross-legged as usual. He conjures a dozen shortbread biscuits with red jam centres. They look so buttery, the jam so saturated to her eyes, now used to snow. She reaches out to pluck one from the silver salver.

“No,” he says, and moves the plate.

She pouts, crawls forward on hands and knees. Again, she reaches for a biscuit.

“No.” He pulls the plate further again. She looks up at him beseechingly, now so close she could brush his knee with her elbow. “Open,” he says in that voice that vibrates every bone in her body.

She knows what he wants. Her eyes close, her lips part just for him. She is still on her hands and knees. Her thighs are trembling.

Only the biscuit touches her tongue. It’s so flaky and buttery that it dissolves there: she barely has to chew, swallowing before she can even taste it. Her eyes stay closed, but she opens her lips again, expectantly.

“Tell me about your family, your friends. The other humans.” Another biscuit lands on her tongue like a sweet communion wafer. She tastes. She swallows. And because she does not have to look into his eyes, because she has the safety of darkness, she can respond.

“There is no one,” she says to the dark behind her eyelids. “I’m completely alone.”

Another biscuit. Another. He feeds her every one from the silver salver, then wipes the crumbs off her lips with a gloved thumb. The air thrums. Rey feels like some string deep inside her is being plucked. Deeper than the magic of the food.

When she opens her eyes, he is gone.

* * *

Why _shouldn’t_ he keep her? What a waste, to break such a pretty thing, to transform her into stone. What a waste to turn all that perfect pink skin to grey; to dim those bright eyes that close for him so obediently. Why _shouldn’t_ he have something warm and sweet for himself, after all that cold?

He dreams of fields. Slender grains gently waving gold above his head.

He dreams of blue skies with fat clouds like the whipped cream Rey loves.

* * *

Kylo feeds her as often as she likes. He asks nothing else of her, except that she eat from his hand on occasion.

Her thighs and hips fill out. Her bruises heal. The little bite marks on her skin become faint. Even her memories become blessedly faded. She is no longer haunted when she remembers bone-aching work, staying up late into the night when a child refuses to sleep.

Rey grows deliciously lazy. She sleeps in. The ice makes mirrors, and she loves catching glimpses of herself: face wreathed in soft furs, her hair rumpled but glossy, her cheeks rounder.

* * *

Kylo shows her the things he finds from her world, strewn through the woods like flotsam and jetsam from a wrecked ship. She names each one for him. Lipstick that fell out of pockets. Snagged nylons. Grocery lists. Train tickets. Pearl earrings. Strange coins Rey says she doesn’t recognize. And sometimes larger things, too: a man’s overcoat, a pair of heeled shoes, a slinky gown. Sometimes the clothes fit her like a glove. Sometimes they don’t, but Rey wears them anyway.

He likes watching her apply the lipstick. He likes that she wears the pearl earrings _he_ found her when she visits with the lion. When he gazes out the window, watches her small pink blur walk next to the larger tawny one, only the memory of her smile when she saw the pearls keeps him from turning every last dwarf to stone.

But he still causes a small avalanche, imagining the lion’s hot breath on her face.

* * *

The lion, apparently, brings spring. Snow melts around his giant paws with every step. Nearby, a yellow dandelion bloom emerges from a snowdrift.

At first, Rey had relished the chance for some warmer weather. But now when she walks with the lion, she only feels irritated. He brings annoying insects, and mud from the snowmelt sticks to her boots. She has to shrug off and carry her heavy coat, sweat sticking to the back of her neck. She misses the swirl of snow around her while she stays warm under her furs.

And the lion is always droning on about _daughters of Eve_. Human women, apparently.

Rey has never cared much for religion.

“So why me, again, exactly?” she asks, nearly tripping over a now-exposed rock.

“You are pure,” he says in that deep, pretentious lion voice. “Untouched. Only you could pass through that wardrobe.”

Rey thinks about all the men she brought into her one-room flat, in her other life. How they groaned and fucked her while she wiggled her hips obligingly, looked at the ceiling, and thought about the bills she needed to be paid. Afterwards, she would smile and kiss their cheeks when they asked, _was that good for you_?

The lion may not know as much about this world as he thinks he does.

“But you must find a son of Adam to rule with you. For taking back your rightful throne will require many battles, and war turns ugly when women fight.”

Wonderful. Briefly, she wonders if Kylo can turn the lion to stone.

Just a private joke to herself, of course.

* * *

He finds a new book deep in the woods, fresh out of the wardrobe. _The Little Prince._ Rey reads it to him out loud. She is on her belly stretched across the carpet in front of the fireplace, only recently lit after years of neglect.

At first, Kylo fidgets. He can read to himself. He wants to feed her instead of listening, wants her to sleep so he can stroke her calves, which grow warm from the flames. He doesn’t understand all the words — “engine,” “planets,” “aeroplane.” But then some parts begin to make sense to him, or at least he thinks.

Rey speaks in the lilting voice of the fox in the story: "...if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the colour of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

* * *

“You have an American accent, you know,” she tells Kylo one day. They both stand next to the feeder for the reindeer. The wild animals aren’t fenced in; they just wander the woods until they smell or hear Kylo with the food. But their soft brown eyes are wary of Rey. She can hear their cautious snorts behind a copse of trees.

His black brows furrow. He looks like he isn’t certain if she has insulted him. Clouds swirl menacingly overhead.

“It’s just a country; the _United States of America_ ,” she says quickly. “From my world. The people from that country sound like you. American. It’s just strange to hear that accent here.”

“You don’t like the way I speak,” he states. The reindeer grow closer at the sound of his voice. Rey holds out a carrot, but doesn’t look directly at them.

“No! No. I like the way you speak. It sounds... nice.” _More than nice_ , if she isn’t lying to herself. But Rey is suddenly shy under the open sky.

His eyes soften; he looks satisfied. “I think I might be from there,” he confesses. “I have dreams. I remember a field, all yellow.”

Rey considers this for a long time. “Maybe you are.” She has coaxed the closest reindeer toward her. She manages to stroke its velvet nose once before it backs away. “Maybe you wandered in and stayed, just like me.”

* * *

“Sons of Adam and daughters of Eve have always sat on the throne here,” drones the lion.

This time, Rey thought ahead and wore a lavender summer dress Kylo had rescued from the wardrobe flotsam. He summoned a strawberry cordial for her before she left, which she carries in a crystal goblet. The taste makes the lion almost bearable.

“Hmm,” Rey hums noncommittally. “Cordial?” She raises the goblet to him.

“No, thank you,” says the lion with disapproval. His face looks sad and irritatingly noble. _Of course_ , he would also be opposed to a summertime drink.

“I wonder,” Rey says, the cordial and the disapproval putting her in a fighting mood, “why Kylo Ren is not a suitable leader? Given he came from my world. ‘Son of Adam,’ as you keep telling me.” Her lavender skirt floats around her knees.

The lion’s tail twitches. “Kylo Ren was... corrupted. His greed for magic makes him an unsuitable ruler. He has allowed winter to reign for a hundred years. He is no longer a pure son of Adam.” He shakes his mane, disturbing a cloud of gnats.

“And who’s fault is _that_?” Rey accuses. “This doesn’t seem like the best place to raise a child. Even more so when you put said child in charge of an entire _realm_. I’m speaking in my role as a professional, of course.”

The lion’s golden eyes have the audacity to look offended. The strawberry taste sparkles on her tongue.

* * *

He makes her drink while he holds the goblet. She must turn his back to him, and he reaches his broad arm around so she can’t watch him as she sips. Rey can only hear his breathing, a deep inhale as his nose brushes her hair.

Sometimes she doesn’t think she craves the food, or the drink, at least not anymore. Not with the same thirst as when she first arrived. Instead, she is addicted to his breath on her neck, his broad fingers inches away from her lips. His roving hands at night, touching her everywhere except the spots she most wishes him to touch.

In the dark, when he is gone, she makes herself come again and again, thinking of him. But her own frantic rubbing is never enough to fully dull the ache between her legs. She’s always hot, always wet.

When her stomach is sated, a new type of hunger blooms larger and larger.

* * *

He shows her a worn and faded piece of paper, folded into three. It’s a travel brochure: she looks at the graphic illustration of a palm tree on a bed of sand, the ocean beyond. All in blue ink, except for the red sail of a boat on the horizon, and the graphic word: HAVANA.

“You’ve been?” he asks. They’re sitting next to each other in front of the fire, shoulders brushing.

“No, never. I never left England.” She strokes the red sail with her fingertip. “It’s hot there. I think I rather prefer the cold.”

His eyes are smouldering when she turns her head to meet his gaze. She rests a hand on his shoulder: her nails have grown back now that she feels no need to bite them. Kylo removes a glove. He feeds her a prawn with cocktail sauce. She keeps her eyes on him as she takes his fingers in her mouth, sucks them clean.

The fire goes out, quite suddenly. His breath comes out in a ghostly puff.

* * *

“Where there was conflict, I now sense resolve; where there was weakness, strength,” says the lion. He looks very grave and ancient. His paws crush new grass into the mud.

“Yes,” says Rey. “I suppose that’s a good way to put it.”

She takes the last bite of a peach, so ripe the juice drips down her chin.

“I don’t think we need to meet anymore,” she declares.

And she turns away, past the point around the lion where the snow melts. The peach pit falls from her hand to the ground. A hard blizzard is brewing. She shrugs on her furs, breathes in the delicious cold that fills her lungs like a knife. She doesn’t look back. But if she did, the golden mane would be swallowed by white.

* * *

She is sticky with peach juice. Kylo can smell the sweetness on her skin as he slides next to her sleeping form. That’s how he imagines her, in the other world: eating peach after peach in the soft gold-and-green light. Feasting on all that pink.

What did she tell the lion?

Does he even care anymore?

This time, he doesn’t touch her with his fingers. He bends over her, moves his face very near. Brushes his nose over her hot, sticky jaw. Runs the very tip of his tongue delicately over her perfect lips. She even _tastes_ like the sun, like a different season, both sweet and tart, filled with growing things.

“ _Kylo,_ ” she breathes. And it isn’t a dream-voice; her eyes are open.

He can’t stop. He needs to devour her whole.

He slides his mouth over hers.

* * *

“ _Kylo_.” Again, Rey moans against his mouth.

She can no longer pretend to sleep, not when he is kissing her, not when she has never been kissed like this: insistent, inexpert, inhuman. He crushes her lips, her skull pressed against the mattress, his eagerness makes it hard for her to breathe. He doesn’t touch her with anything but his mouth, as though the taste of her were enough to sustain him.

But _she_ touches him. Her hand scrabbles with his tunic until she finds the glacial expanse of his chest. He shudders at the new contact — it sends wetness straight to her cunt, how responsive he is to her touch, how impatient he is for it.

And once he feels her hand on him, he seems to realize that _he_ can touch her too. He rips the beige uniform she still uses to sleep — buttons scatter — and _finally_ , his hands are everywhere: her nipples, her hips, her ass, positioning her exactly how he likes. Rey thrills at how he moves her so easily, his pet, his doll — _yes,_ she thinks, _yes_ —

They’re both panting, sending moans and sighs into the dark chill of the castle. He makes low growls like an animal as he shimmies out of his clothing and presses up against her. Skin to skin, fire to ice, her nipples pebbling at the cold. He moves on top of her, pinning her down as his cock rubs against her thighs, across her stomach, beside her hips, leaving a shining trail of precum in the moonlight. The sight makes her dizzy.

“Kylo, here, you can —” and it’s too difficult to explain, _want_ makes her tongue heavy. So she simply moves his hand downwards to her hot, wet centre.

How he groans at the heat of her! He buries his head into her shoulder. She tries to stay still, her heart threatening to escape from her chest as he paws at her cunt, coating his hand with her wetness. He isn't rhythmic, he isn't rushed, he isn't on a mission. His fingers are only probing her, seeking the warmth that builds and builds inside her.

Rey closes her eyes. Her body is pulled tight; every fibre of her being focuses on the movement of his hands, tracing her, _learning_ her...

And then he finds her clit. And Rey can't stay still then: she jerks her hips, she _wails._ He draws his hand away instantly.

“I’m hurting you,” he rasps.

“No, no, _never,_ only it feels so _good_ , just need a little more — “ she's babbling, but his hand goes back to her cunt, and now she focuses on showing him what she likes, grinding against his palm and fingers, hitting the right rhythm that makes her toes curl and her thighs quake. She is utterly shameless, flushed and full and sweating. He watches her carefully, fascinated. Observing his little kept thing. Petting her face and lips and back with his spare hand, like she is one of the reindeer. Testing out how many fingers she can take in her mouth and cunt.

And that's how, finally, she comes: deliciously stuffed.

His cock, she observes through her post-orgasmic haze, is very hard and red.

Judging by the way he slides it between her slick thighs, he has some new ideas about how to use it.

Rey grins, bites her lip, and parts her legs.

And when he slides inside her, when he growls deep in his throat and begins to move his hips against her, he feels like she has been joined to the blizzard that swirls around the castle. Their fucking makes her feel like a winter: not the greeting-card season with skates and scarves, but the primal, feral season all warm and living things fear. The season people fight back with flaming hearths. And now she is the fire, too, somehow, holding both cold and heat deep inside her.

She is lost in pleasure, his dark eyes are the eye of the storm. Her blood is hot and pulsing at every point at which they touch. She wants the warmth to pour inside him. She wants to feed him too, for once, while his breath is ragged in her ears, while his hands grip her hips with bruising force, while he is looking at her like she is the untouchable surface of the sun.

Rey delivers every spare heat to him as her cunt pulses, as she comes again.

And it isn’t cold at all when he comes inside her a few moments later. Her heartbeat settles. Her ear falls against his chest, she can feel the pace of his heart match hers.

* * *

Outside, the snow is still. The clear night sky turns from black to blue.

Beneath the eaves of the towers, icicles begin a slow drip.

**Author's Note:**

> The excerpt Rey reads from _The Little Prince_ is, in fact, from the _Little Prince_ by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry


End file.
